November 03, 2010

Ballots not adding up for Brady; Republicans grim

UPDATED at 4:38 p.m. by Rick Pearson, David Kidwell, John Chase and Jeff Coen

Leading Republicans this afternoon are privately expressing doubts that Bill Brady can overcome Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn's narrow lead following Tuesday's election, and a Tribune survey of election officials likewise indicates there may not be enough ballots left uncounted to make a difference.

Brady and his supporters this morning held out hope that tens of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted, along with other stragglers, could help him make up Quinn's lead, which started at 8,300 votes in the morning and had grown to more than 16,000 by late today.

"Do we recognize the reality of coming up with 8,000 votes as an uphill climb? Of course we do. But nobody's ready to throw in the towel," said Brien Sheahan, the lead counsel for the state Republican Party.

But as the day wore on, a survey of election officials in about three dozen of the state’s most populous counties indicated the real number of votes left to be counted is much smaller. And most of those outstanding votes will come from areas where Democrat Quinn did better than Republican Brady.

There are about 14,000 absentee ballots waiting to be counted in Cook County and Chicago, but those are expected to be lean heavily to Quinn. There were less than 150 absentee ballots waiting to be counted in the other populous counties surveyed by the Tribune, including DuPage, Will, Lake, Kendall, Kane, Madison, St. Clair and Brady's home county of McLean.

And even if more absentee ballots show up in Republican-leaning counties, Brady was only winning such areas by a margin of 60-40 over Quinn. The Democrat, by contrast, was winning far more populous Chicago 80-20 and suburban Cook County by nearly 60-40.

Election officials say that while there are more than 40,000 absentee ballots that were mailed out to potential voters that haven't come back yet, most of them never will. That's because there is always a drop-off between how many absentee ballots are requested and how many are actually returned to be counted.

So while Brady is expressing hope publicly, behind-the-scenes the Republican faces are grim.

One prominent Republican, who asked not to be identified to avoid upsetting Brady, said the decisions on how to proceed were being made, in part, by the Republican Governors Association, which was reluctant to throw in the towel following its very large investment in the race.

The RGA poured nearly $8 million into the Brady effort, becoming its top campaign donor. Patty Schuh a spokeswoman for Brady’s campaign, said the RGA was “providing guidance and counseling” but added, “we’re explaining how the rules work in Illinois.”

"We obviously plan on doing our part to ensure that every vote is counted accurately, fairly, and transparently. We are also looking at areas we think are concerning," said Chris Schrimpf, spokesman for the governors association. He referred further comment to the Brady campaign.

The Brady camp said it is entitled to await the certification of the ballot results by the State Board of Elections—a process that could take weeks. Local election officials must canvass their results and send them to Springfield on Nov. 23 and the State Board of Elections has until Dec. 3 to certify the results.

But the picture painted by election officials around the state suggests the numbers just aren't there for Brady.

In Republican-heavy DuPage County, for instance, there are 3,200 unaccounted absentee ballots. But DuPage County Election Commission Executive Director Robert Saar said of those he expects less than 100 will still come in to be tallied.

“It’s going to be a very small fraction of that,” he said. “We won’t get 3,200 back in. We’ll get 50, 60, 70…100 at best.”

In Champaign County, where Brady was defeating Quinn by about 9,000 votes, County Clerk Mark Sheldon said while there are about 900 outstanding absentee ballots, he expects to receive and count only about 300.

Election officials elsewhere downstate and in the suburbs told a similar story, noting that a large portion of the absentee ballots still uncounted went out to military personnel and those traditionally have a low rate of return.

In the city of Peoria, there are still 400 absentees that haven’t been returned but executive director Tom Bride said, “I don’t expect anywhere near the 400” to end up being counted.

In Madison County, on the Illinois side of St. Louis, which Brady won by a 54 percent to 40 percent margin, county election officials still had about 700 absentee ballots not returned but County Clerk Mark Von Nida said there’s very little chance all of those will come in to be tallied. “The chances that 730 ballots will come in are extremely, extremely remote,” Von Nida said.

Cook County and Chicago officials won't count their remaining absentee ballots until Thursday at the earliest.

Absentee ballots postmarked by Monday, Nov. 1, can still be counted if they are recieved by Nov. 16. Clerks in many downstate counties said they won't count their absentee ballots until that date.

Posted by David Heinzmann and David Kidwell at 9:10 a.m.; updated at 12:38 p.m.

BLOOMINGTON --- Republican challenger Bill Brady today reiterated that he wants all the ballots to be counted but the fate of the race may hinge largely on how many uncounted ballots are left in GOP-leaning areas.

"Realistically, we think we're looking at a 30 day process," he said. Brady said he had not yet engaged election lawyers or begun to discuss a recount.

Behind the scenes, however, Republican strategists were doing the math on whether there are enough ballots left to make up the more than 8,300 votes against Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.

In Chicago, Republican Party lawyer Brien Sheahan was at election central for Cook County and Chicago as officials there worked on verifying late-arriving absentee ballots -- counting wasn't likely to begin until tomorrow. Sheahan said the Brady campaign today began a statewide canvass to determine whether enough outstanding absentee votes even exist in Republican-leaning counties to offset the overwhelmingly high number of Democrats from Chicago and Cook County.

“Right now we just don’t know,” Sheahan said. “We are trying to answer that question today. ”

The Quinn campaign said it does "not see a path to victory for Bill Brady."

"The ballots left to be counted appear mostly to come from Cook County, where the governor held a large margin over Sen. Brady. We expect to hold our lead, and may increase it," Quinn campaign spokeswoman Mica Matsoff said in a statement.

Quinn spent the morning at his Chicago home, consulting with election attorneys and campaign aides. He plans to go to his downtown state office early this afternoon.

Brady refused to say whether he knew where the outstanding precincts were located. "It's hard for us to tell."

The remarks came after Brady and key advisers huddled this morning in a Bloomington hotel to examine what the chances are of Brady winning a close race with thousands of ballots still to be counted from Tuesday's election.

The key isn't expected to be the votes cast Tuesday however, but rather the thousands of absentee ballots cast in recent days and not yet counted by election officials. It is typical for some absentee ballots to not be counted until after the election, so officials can make sure those people didn't also vote on Election Day.

Cook County and Chicago officials say they will not even count the outstanding absentee ballots today -- there are nearly 15,000. Rather they will spend hours on the laborious task of ensuring the ballots are valid. Counting would not start until Thursday at the earliest.

Last night, Brady and other Republicans said the absentee ballots around the state, along with provisional ballots and votes cast by military members overseas, could make the difference.

But the outstanding ballots in Chicago and Cook County are not likely to break in Brady's favor.

That's what Republicans are trying to figure out this morning -- how many of such ballots are out there, and if they come from areas where Brady has an expectation of picking up substantial numbers.

Comments

Given Quinn's background (being a Blago crony and all) I wouldn't hold my breath if I were Bill Brady. Remember the Bob and Tom quip about the 6th sense Chicago Board of Elections (I see dead people, and they're all voting in this election). I think a recount should be automatically assumed in this race, as I doubt that most people trust the vote count as it stands.

I don't really think Quinn has done all that bad a job considering what he inherited to work with, all the same he DID hand out raises and perks that were not appropriate for the condition of the state budget. I just think it will be better all around if we elect a new Governor and hopefully inject a little honesty into a badly corrupted system.

Wonderful, Quinn has openly stated that he will raise taxes to help fix the budget woes. Union workers and his own workers are coming off huge raises within the past couple months. Almost everyone else is either losing their job or taking pay cuts. Yeah, this will help the economy. This state is hopeless.

It blows me away that anyone in Illinois would consider sticking with Quinn. He's not an evil man, but the thought of staying on this track to nowhere that we're on is making me think seriously about leaving the state. Why is it the most common sense seems to come out of downstate Illinois? Are Chicagoans not affected by the people running this state?

It makes me sick that Brady has won almost 98% of the counties in Illinois and yet we are beholden to only 1 county. Hey Quinn, you pretty much only won in 1 county. Illinois "the rest of the state" does not want you. Maybe you should run for Mayor of Chicago instead...

While I am a Republican, the thought of Brady as governor was too much and I voted for Quinn (the only Democrat I voted for). I have kids in public schools and at a state university (and I am a U of I grad; my husband is an ISU grad) and Brady would have destroyed public education in Illinois. Had Kirk Dillard been the candidate, I think he would have won and we would have voted for him (thanks Andy McKenna for destroying Dillard as a candidate and costing Republicans the governorship in the primary). Anyway, happy Kirk is the new senator, and we have no real issues with Quinn.

This is insane. This shouldn’t have been a Governor’s race this should have been a Mayoral race. If you look at the electoral map Quinn won Cook County, aka “The Corrupt Democratic County” and that is about it. The electoral map shows this clearly. 98% of the stated is RED!!! Quinn stated "The people have won, and I believe we have won,” He can think this all he wants but he needs to open his eyes wide and realize that the country won and the people did win. His agenda for Illinois must follow what the country voted for; smaller government, less regulations, and less taxes. Regardless, he will be arrested or he will do something corrupt as all Democrat Illinois Governors do with in the next few years I am sure. When do the people truly get to run the state instead of corrupt politicians?

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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